Sunday, March 22, 2009

On Liberty

Earlier this week my good friend "Free Market" posted some excellent recommendations for the conservative reader. Now I'd like to share a few. As I sit here and drink one glass too many of wine, I am reminded of my stubborn love for the fading concept of American liberty. American liberty represents the true sense of the natural law or what Jefferson captured in the Declaration, "Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them [men]..." These are laws that attached to us at birth and are not granted by any government, but in stark contrast grant us as individuals the right to confer on government the right to rule.

American liberty has been many things, a thorn in the side of a crown, the courage of men to move west, and the courage to pull off the greatest political experiment in the history of mankind. I am very afraid that we are in the desperate position of losing that sense of liberty and slipping into complacency. If you read this blog, I ask you read 3 books --- or rather pamphlets really, On Liberty by John Stuart Mills, Common Sense by Thomas Paine, and Areopagitica by John Milton. For those of you worried about the coming fairness doctrine debate, you would be doing yourself a gross injustice not to read Areopagitica.

PS, if any of these books have an editorial introduction ---- skip it. The men who formed the concept of liberty did so through the lens of their own lives and not some reconstructionist professor.

I'm not going quietly into that gentle night as my country slouches toward socialism, mediocrity and victim psychology. Too many of us who contribute to this blog gave too much to simply quit. We also have the unfortunate privilege of knowing the names of too many friends in Arlington Cemetery to give up and walk away from the bravest political idea ever conceived. Good night.

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